Björn Amherd

YouTube has launched a fresh Movies category on its website, gathering about 400 full-length films for your on-demand viewing pleasure, all free of charge.

The renewed section, which is actually more like the next step in previously announced projects, comes courtesy of deals the Google company struck with U.S. studios like Lionsgate, MGM and Sony Pictures and UK service Blinkbox.

Update: Google checked in to clarify this is a UK announcement only and doesn’t affect the US Movies section announced last year (see link above).

In addition, the company wanted to make clear that the MGM / Lionsgate / Sony Pictures content is currently only available in the US, not in the UK.

What can you find there? Loads of Bollywood flicks, a bunch of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan films, obscure horror movies and cartoons, among many other sections.

“This is one of many efforts to ensure that people can find all the different kinds of video they want to see, from bedroom vlogs and citizen journalism reports to full-length films and TV shows,” YouTube head of video partnerships Donagh O’Malley told The Guardian.

“We hope film lovers enjoy the range of titles in this free library, whether catching up on a mainstream hit or delving into the vast archive of classic films from decades past.”

Personally, I haven’t spotted many mainstream hits or real classics in the catalog, but maybe it’s just me. Ah well, off to watch Teenage Devil Dolls.

Favorite Comment: That Guy louis says, “Luke, I am your shipment container.”

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in Farbe - und bunt!

Some Firefox users opted into a study called “Week in the Life of a Browser” that recorded their browser usage; and while the researchers didn’t record what users were doing or what sites they were visiting while they were in private mode, they did track when those users turned it on and off. They identified four daily spikes in usage.

The first is around lunchtime, then there’s another right after people get home from work around 5:00 PM. Then there’s a spike around 10:00 PM and a final, smaller one a couple hours after midnight.

The lunch break would seem to indicate that many office workers don’t trust their resident IT guys not to look through their personal information and browsing history when they do non-work browsing. The after-work spike may be less explicable. You can probably formulate some ideas about the late night peaks.

The study determined the average private browsing session lasted 10 minutes, with the 25th percentile at four minutes and the 75th at 22 minutes.

Are these times and durations what you expected? Let us know in the comments. Just try not to go into too much detail if you’re a cynic about it, or someone might have to turn on private browsing to visit Mashable, too!

More About: browser, Firefox, metrics, mozilla, porn, porn mode, private browsing

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We’re bringing back some of those CLASSIC FAILS so you can add them to your profile FAVORITES. Enjoy it again and add them to your favorites!

Here’s some infographic perspective on the eve of Facebook’s copycat Facebook Places launch, which has some ringing the death knell for location based startups Foursquare and Gowalla.

A stroll through the Google graveyard is a lesson in how rarely it works out when successful companies stop focusing on their core competency to go after the little guys. Between Wave, Jaiku, and Foursquare precursor Dodgeball, Google’s a repeat offender in the “failing to kill the next big thing” department.

With the launch of today’s check-in utility, it seems like the Facebook product team might be following in the search giant’s startup-crushing footsteps. After all, when was the last time you asked a Facebook Question?

Image: Wordstream

Alle kamen sie wieder aus den Löchern gekrochen, obwohl (oder gerade weil) angekündigt war, dass Xenia die Streetparade gehörig versauen würde.

Die Parade war wie jedes Jahr einwandfrei organisiert. Wie ein Schweizer Uhrwerk halt, gell liebe Freunde aus Deutschland. Comme d’habitude präsentierten sich auch die Paradegänger. Von allem war etwas dabei…

So waren Moderatoren zugegen wie Alena Gerber, Al Walser… (meines Wissens ist der Liechtensteiner Al Walser übrigens ein Promi, weil er Michael Jackson kannte)

…oder Tele-Züri-Gabriela. Hier posierend mit Drogen und mit DJane Tanja la Croix.

Die Kategorie Ex-Vize-Miss deckte u.a. Xenia ab. Sie war da, um sich als Sprechgesängerin und DJane zu präsentieren (und als Model natürlich):

Jan war für die älteren Damen da… (wir erinnern uns an Cougar-Patty):

Bei genauerem Hinsehen erkannte man auch auf den Lastwagen unter den lässig schrillen Kostümen den ein oder anderen Cervelat-Promi. Hier seht ihr zum Beispiel Denise Biellmann im extra geschneiderten Hautkostüm (sie ist es wirklich):

Auch die Frischrasierten waren zugegen: «Schaut her, ich hab mich extra für’s Partisan-Schiff unter den Armen und zwischen den Brüsten rasiert!»

Die Immer-schön-imsTilllate-Lächler waren wie Regen in Zürich vertreten:

Die Kategorie Weg-vom-Fenster tauchte in der Person von Börni (rechts) auf:

Mike Shiva erschien nicht mit seinem Hund, mit dem er ja sonst sogar das Bett teilt:

Die offizielle Seite war schliesslich vertreten durch Corinne Maus und Daniel Leupi, die sich gekonnt imsTilllate-Pose warfen. Party on dude!

Elaine got the feeling that Gary planned to stay in the bathroom for a long time.

Check out more Engrish Funny here!

While everyone knows the basics about the service’s Harvard dorm room origins, we’ve delved a little deeper to find out more interesting snippets of info.

Here are 10 facts you might not know about Facebook, so read on and let us know your favorites in the comments box below.

1. Al Pacino’s Face Was on the Original Facebook Homepage

Prior to a major homepage redesign back in 2007, Facebook’s front page used to feature a man’s face partly obscured behind a cloud of binary code.

Dubbed the “Facebook guy,” it was not known who the mystery man was — until recently. David Kirkpatrick has revealed in his book The Facebook Effect that the image is a manipulated photo of Al Pacino created by a friend and classmate of Mark Zuckerberg.

2. One Early Facebook Function Was a File Sharing Service

You won’t find this in the official Facebook timeline, but one of Facebook’s early add-ons was a peer-to-peer, or more technically friend-to-friend, file sharing service called Wirehog, developed alongside Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg and three others.

It launched in 2004 and is reported to have been planned as an integral FB feature. In 2005 Facebook was actively promoting the service and Zuckerberg told The Harvard Crimson “I think Wirehog will probably spread in the same way that thefacebook did.”

However, likely due to piracy concerns, Wirehog was axed in 2006 before Facebook got really big, although its photo-sharing functionality lives on in spirit.

3. The First “Work Networks” Included Apple and Microsoft

Many of you may know about Facebook’s initial staggered rollout, where they started with Ivy League colleges before encompassing other educational institutions. But do you know who Facebook first went corporate with in terms of official work places?

In May 2006, Apple and Microsoft were among the first, as was Intel, EA and Amazon. Others in the first round also included Accenture, Gap, Intuit, Pepsi, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the non-profit organization Teach for America. It wasn’t until September 2006 that everyone, regardless of school or company affiliation, could join Facebook — and just over a year later the site hit 50 million active users.

4. Facebook’s Hidden Easter Eggs

Facebook is no stranger to Easter eggs. Early on, mysterious movie-related references (apparently Zuckerberg is a big film buff) could be found littering the site.

The references could be found in the footer of the old “Friends Page” in 2007, and one of the first was a quail-themed quote from the film The Wedding Crashers. Later dubbed “quails,” other quotes with the avian theme continued to appear in the footer text, including “Only the craftiest of quails survive hunting season,” and “What doesn’t kill a quail only makes it stronger.”

In addition, Facebook once boasted a Konami Code (you know — up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, enter) that changed the background of the site to display colorful circles and light flares.

Finally, there’s the “Chris Putnam,” a Facebook Chat Easter egg that still works today. To test it out, when in chat type in :putnam: and hit enter — ta da!

5. The Meaning of the Term Poke Has Never Been Defined

While Facebook explains how “poking” works on its help center, there’s no explanation to be found for the origin of the phrase. The most common definition is a friendly “nudge,” but the more flirtatious connotations cannot be ignored.

David Kirkpatrick reveals in The Facebook Effect that Zuckerberg once responded to a question about what a poke meant on the social networking site with: “We thought it would be fun to make a feature that has no specific purpose… So mess around with it, because you’re not getting an explanation from us.”

6. The Average Facebook User Has 130 Friends

How many Facebook friends do you have? To put your friend count in perspective, the average user has 130. Facebook’s official stats page is full of little gems like this, and more staggering stats, such as the fact that people spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook, while the current active official user count now stands at over 500 million.

As far as Facebook the platform goes, over a million websites have integrated with Facebook, and more than 150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month.

7. There’s an App to See What’s on the Facebook Cafe Menu

Like at Google, Facebook staffers get three free meals a day (as well as free drinks and snackage) served up by the “Facebook Culinary Team” at Cafe X or Cafe 6.

If the staff want to know what’s on the menu, they don’t need to leave their seats. In fact, they don’t even need to leave their Facebook profiles — the “Lunchtime” Facebook app offers a weekly view of what’s being offered. And it looks real good.

8. Mark Zuckerberg Calls Himself a “Harvard Graduate”

As you can see for yourself over at facebook.com/zuck (the personalized URL Zuckerberg nabbed for himself), Mark Zuckerberg tells a little fib on his profile page. He lists himself as a “Harvard Graduate,” which simply isn’t true, as he dropped out to concentrate on getting Facebook up and running.

When 60 Minutes reporter Lesley Stahl confronted Zuckerberg with this little inconsistency, he said “That’s true. We don’t have a setting for dropout.”

Er, memo to Zuck — you kind of have the power to make that happen…

9. California is Huge on Facebook

As far as Facebook goes, California (home of Silicon Valley) is the most social state, with an amazing 15,267,160 users in the region, according to Facebakers. This amounts to a 41% penetration rate — pretty astounding that nearly half the state is connected via Facebook.

The next biggest user-base can be found in Texas with 9 million users, but it’s nowhere close to California. New York comes in third with 8 million, and rounding off the very bottom of the list is … Delaware. Of course, actual state population size is a factor here, but you get the point.

10. A Facebook Employee Hoodie Sold for $4,000 on eBay

If Facebook merchandise is collectible now, imagine what it will be worth in years to come. A Facebook employee standard-issue hoodie recently sold on eBay for a whopping $4,050 with nearly 50 bidders battling it out to win the auction.

The fact that Mark Zuckerberg had just been seen sporting the same garment at the D8 Conference and revealed its mysterious insignia to the world certainly helped up the bids, but considering the one that sold had not touched Zuckerberg skin, it’s an astonishing amount.

More Facebook resources from Mashable

- 10 Cool Facebook Status Tips and Tricks
- 9 Fantastic Facebook Pages for Fashion
- HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on Facebook
- Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups: What’s the Difference?
- Killer Facebook Pages: 5 Inspiring Case Studies
- How Charities are #FindingTheGood With Facebook Pages

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Vancouver Public Library.

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Jürg posted a photo:

This street view find is most excellent. Party on, Google!

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geiles Auto

This is hilarious and uber creative advertising. If I wore glasses, I'd totally buy from these guys.

Update: Discovered where this is from. This was part of an ad campaign from Oogmerk opticians from way back in 2006. [thx, Tony]

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Glasses: the ultimate image changer / Follow @flowingdata on Twitter or fan on Facebook for more data goodness.